What Virginia’s election teaches about power in numbers
“Virginia shows that when we choose connection over resignation, when we build partnerships and center the voters most often marginalized, we can bend our democracy toward justice.”
Read Workers Circle CEO Ann Toback and founding board member of Center for Common Ground Andrea Miller’s op-ed in the Virginian Pilot.
December 4, 2025
When Donald Trump won the presidency, many of us recognized the imminent threat to our democracy. His campaign had embraced “Project 2025,” which openly called for dismantling democratic institutions and consolidating executive authority.
In the last 11 months, we’ve seen his administration launch an all-out assault on democracy and the safety net that protects millions: ICE agents and the National Guard deployed in U.S. cities to terrorize communities and kidnap tens of thousands of people without warrants in direct violation of the Constitution; the civil service gutted and key positions replaced with partisan loyalists; and an endless drumbeat of lies designed to convince ordinary people that their voices — and votes — don’t matter. For many, despair became a default setting.
Then came November’s elections.
In Virginia — where for the first time voters elected a woman as governor with the highest number of votes in history and a Muslim to statewide office — turnout tells the story.
This year, 3.4 million Virginians voted — 200,000 more than in 2021 and 800,000 more than in 2017. During early voting alone, 1.5 million people cast their ballots, and 57% of those early voters were women. In a non-presidential year, turnout reached 75% of the 2024 presidential level. What accounts for this massive uptick? It happened because thousands of volunteers and dozens of organizations did the slow, steady work of showing voters that their participation matters.
Across Virginia, local and national groups showed how simple, focused voter outreach can help power this kind of wave. Through a partnership between the Workers Circle and the Center for Common Ground, volunteers sent 607,727 handwritten postcards reminding the Black community what they needed to know to cast a ballot. The messages were straightforward and nonpartisan.
As part of the Center for Common Ground’s statewide effort, more than 45,000 postcards went out to Black voters in Chesapeake alone, while volunteers and organizers called and texted voters in Virginia Beach, Hampton, Newport News, Suffolk and Portsmouth.
While the scale is impressive, the real power is in how accessible this work is. Anyone can write postcards, make calls or send texts to voters facing barriers in other states. In each interaction, something crucial happens. Not only do voters get information they need, but they make a connection. They’re reminded that no one is alone in this fight and that voting is a tool we can use, even when so much feels out of our control.
Black voters, especially Black women, were at the heart of Virginia’s turnout and outcomes. Fifteen percent of voters in this election were African American. That level of participation is the result of long-term, relational organizing — neighbors talking to neighbors, and local volunteers reaching out again and again, not just at election time but in between.
The question now is not whether Virginia’s story is inspiring; it clearly is. The question is what we do with this inspiration.
We must use Virginia as a roadmap. Every one of us has a role to play: writing postcards, joining phone banks, supporting local organizers, sharing accurate voting information in our communities, and talking with friends and family. Democracy requires our participation, not just on election day but in the sustained work between elections.
Despair is understandable, but it isn’t a strategy. Virginia shows that when we choose connection over resignation, when we build partnerships and center the voters most often marginalized, we can bend our democracy toward justice.
Let’s carry that lesson in the months ahead. The midterms are here and they are our next chance to prove that organized people can still beat organized money and fear. What happened in Virginia can happen across the country. It will — if we the people decide, together, to make it so.
Ann Toback of New York City is the CEO of the Workers Circle. Andrea Miller of Ruther Glen is a founding board member of the Center for Common Ground.
Link to the op-ed can be found here.
About the Workers Circle
Celebrating its 125th anniversary in 2025, the Workers Circle is a national Jewish social justice organization founded by Eastern European immigrants who came to the United States fleeing autocracy and persecution and seeking democratic freedoms and economic opportunities. That history drives the organization’s work for an inclusive democracy and social equality today. Through strategic and impactful social justice initiatives, vibrant Yiddish language classes and programs, and interactive educational activities, the Workers Circle powers a growing multigenerational community of 150,000+ activists creating meaningful social change, building transformative coalitions and demanding a multiracial multicultural democracy for all. Learn more at www.circle.org.